It took a giant-ass bomb for it to happen — the Mother of All Bombs, actually, or the MOAB.

Its technical name is the GBU-42/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, a large-yield bomb that weighs in at a healthy 21,600 pounds, and at the time of its conception and development was the largest non-nuke in the American arsenal. Military folks have known about it for over a decade now, and a small percentage of servicemembers have even seen it tested. But it took the first use of the MOAB in combat for it to enter the national consciousness. In the process, it returned our nation’s longest-ever (and still ongoing) war to the forefront, too.

It did so with style. There was much, much handwringing about using the MOAB to target mountain tunnels being used by ISIS’s affiliate in Afghanistan. There were creepy declarations of love by newscasters to the beauty of its mass destruction. There were even debates about the gender specificity of the term “Mother” in the MOAB nickname. More than anything, though, it seemed like a society and culture obsessed with arguing about the presidential election (still) and critiquing a Pepsi ad featuring another goddamn Kardashian was cocking its head toward the distant Silk Road and asking itself, “Wait — we’re still fighting over there? Why?”

As college history courses taught me — and which my Twitter addiction reinforces every day — other than sex and guilt, there ain’t a more American fetish than violence. We relish it, especially if it involves spectacle. Double if that spectacle is big and unprecedented.

The MOAB sure offered spectacle. Big spectacle. Big, unprecedented spectacle.

For one: The MOAB had never been used “for real” before. For two: The decision to utilize it had been turned over to the military brass in eastern Afghanistan rather than emanating from the White House. For three: Let’s face it, MOAB is a fucking sweet nickname. Say it out loud, to yourself, to your dog, to your cat, to your imaginary friend Jill. You feel in the know, right? Acronyms that go boom do that.

Anywhere from thirty to ninety ISIS militants were killed in the blast, according to early reports, though it’ll probably take months for identities and exact numbers to emerge. Same goes for the damage report to the mountain tunnel complex. It was a tactical and operational decision that carried with it strategic-level consequences — nothing new in the age of the Forever War, I suppose.

As college history courses taught me — and which my Twitter addiction reinforces every day — other than sex and guilt, there ain’t a more American fetish than violence.

There’s a lot to unpack here. I’ll start with the strange reactions stateside. It wasn’t that a bomb was dropped “over there” — that’s damn near a daily occurrence nowadays and American society as a whole stopped even feigning interest about “over there” years ago. What offended, or titillated, or thrilled, or horrified, or whatever, was the size of the bomb and its previous non-use. Which, okay, sure — this is yet another norm established, and that’s no small thing with a petulant, baby-handed Cheeto jester in charge of the free world. (I’m one of those types mentioned above that’s still not over it. But — just because I’m a hypocrite doesn’t make me wrong! Anyhow.)

Had the bomb’s impact/blast radius/size/etc. been separated into two, or three, or a hundred smaller bombs, would that have made it less violent somehow? More peaceful, less…war-like? Of course not. And plenty of bombings like that have happened in recent months and years, from Afghanistan to Iraq and beyond. Which is why so much of the antiwar left’s shrillness in the aftermath of the MOAB sounded so empty and contrived. At best, this means they haven’t been paying attention. At worst, they’re capitalizing on a newsworthy event to make counter-news, which is all sorts of terrible.

Meanwhile, on the right, there was red, white, and emo glee. I turned on Fox News for twenty minutes and I swear I saw four different middle-aged white guys make an O-face as they talked about the MOAB. In a basic-logic sort of way, it proved Trump’s campaign promise to bomb the hell out of ISIS, and STRONG WORDS plus BIG BOMB seemed to make a mess of these jokers’ pants. (Did any of them serve in the military when they were young? Of course not! They had cable-news careers to prepare for.)

Call me a hippie if you want, but personally, I think it’s okay to A) acknowledge we live in the country that controls things like the MOAB and be glad for it, and B) still think it’s the decent human response to be somber about something as incredibly destructive as the MOAB being dropped on people, even if those people are enemy combatants.

Then there’s what the MOAB portends about military decisions going forward. “Leave it to the generals” has been a political talking point since at least the Reagan era, but that whole civilians-remain-in-charge thing is a bedrock of our republic. Lincoln had to fire McClellan to remind him of it, and Truman had to do the same with MacArthur, but both generals took it on the chin and saved the bitching for their memoirs.

What happens when the commander in chief delegates duties, though? General John Nicholson made the decision to drop the MOAB — he alerted the White House to it, true enough, but mostly as a courtesy. Proponents of this approach will cite Trump’s “total authorization” approach. Critics like this skinny Irish gadfly will wonder if it’s not a shirking of responsibility. Gloat when it goes well, blame the generals when it doesn’t. As evidenced by the media response and the public interest, this wasn’t just another mission. There’s a few reasons this hasn’t happened before despite the MOAB being developed a decade-plus ago.

We’re a long way from “The Buck Stops Here.” Regardless, the next time a MOAB gets dropped, it’s worth wondering how the citizens who paid for it will respond. If history holds, a collective shrug seems all too likely. Another new normal. All the while, war in Afghanistan holds.

Photo: Shutterstock.com/ Romolo Tavani
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